US Agencies and International Partners Issue Cybersecurity Protection Directives Against Russian Attacks
Washington, July 13 (KUNA) -- The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), in collaboration with U.S. and international partners, issued joint guidance today on Monday regarding the maintenance and securing of routers to protect against Russian government-sponsored cyberattacks.
In a statement, the agency said the guidance, titled “Improving Router Maintenance and Security Practices to Protect Against Russian Government-Sponsored Targeting,” aims to “warn device owners of the threats posed by Russian cyber actors to networks in critical infrastructure sectors.” It added that the guidance explains how the “Center 16” unit of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) continues to exploit vulnerable or misconfigured networks.
The agency emphasized that this problem persists, affecting diverse U.S. and foreign networks across multiple sectors, including the defense industrial base, telecommunications, energy, financial services, government utilities, and healthcare.
The NSA and participating agencies stressed the importance of following basic router maintenance and security practices as a means to enable companies and institutions to deter state-sponsored cyber actors. They urged the adoption of security hardening measures, including implementing Simple Network Management Protocol version 3 (SNMPv3), using strong and unique passwords, disabling the Cisco Smart Install feature, and blocking SNMP, SMTP, and TFTP protocols at the firewall, as well as updating software and firmware images to patch security vulnerabilities.
The statement noted that agencies participating in issuing the advisory include the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Department of Defense’s Cyber Crime Center, the Australian Cyber Security Centre, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, and New Zealand’s National Cyber Security Centre.
It also listed among the participating entities the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, the Czech National Cyber and Information Security Agency (NUKIB), Denmark’s Defence Intelligence Service, Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the Estonian Information System Authority, Finland’s Defence Intelligence Agency, the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo), France’s National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI), Italy’s External Intelligence and Security Agency (AISE), Italy’s Internal Intelligence and Security Agency (AISI), Poland’s Military Counterintelligence Service, and Sweden’s National Cyber Security Centre. (End) R.R. / A.S.
